8 Over-Hyped Video Games (That Actually NAILED It)

4. Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 had a notoriously rocky development - a process of "finding the game" that went through so many iterations, prototypes were turned into entire other franchises along the way. A more melee combat-driven build became Devil May Cry, a more monster-slaying variant became Onimusha, and even "Resident Evil 4" in its first iteration was more corridor-crawling with a static camera.

Then, it all changed. Legendary designer Shinji Mikami must've had enough of working within a certain set of boundaries, because the next time we saw RE4, the camera was over Leon's shoulder, a brand new shooting model was implemented, and the game's opening village scene was written into the history books overnight.

Resident Evil 4 remains an essential game, and it became the reason to buy a GameCube, as I cannot put into words how mind-blowing this approach to action was, and how it felt to finally control it in real time.